New Australian TV Show - Struggle Street

[dungoofed]

Anyone watching this? How is it?

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/struggle-street-is-complex-and-nuanced-and-we-cant-handle-it-20150506-ggvlmk.html

What we saw was a complex and nuanced look at how some people fall through the cracks. And how damn hard it is to climb back up when you don't have the money, family, friends or education most of us take for granted.

It's easy to bark "Get a job" at the people of Mount Druitt. Minister for Employment Eric Abetz has suggested it's reasonable for the unemployed to apply for 40 jobs a month. But what jobs, and where? The Australian Bureau of Statistics says there are about 770,000 Australians competing for just 150,000 vacancies.

On Struggle Street, we meet 16-year-old Bailee. On her 13th birthday, her stepdad split her head open – so her mum kicked her onto the street. Then she got raped. Her arm bears the scars from a recent suicide attempt. Eventually, she turned to ice.

edit: trailer here: https://embed.theguardian.com/embed/video/media/video/2015/may/05/sbs-mount-druitt-struggle-street-promo-video-doco

[MMMaybe]

I'm going to watch this later on the SBS website. I am reserving judgement but it does look like poverty porn at first glimpse.

[marty998]

Wasn't game to start a thread on this but now that you mentioned it....

I saw the first episode. I thought it was a truly disgraceful piece of programming that took advantage of people who don't fully understand what they are getting themselves into.
 
One person in it I felt a lot of sympathy for - the 16 year old girl who was thrown out of home at 13 and raped while being homeless and living on the streets.

The rest of it was just, as you said, poverty porn - no real intent or purpose, or overarching sociological reason to broadcast it.

Not everyone in Mt Druitt is a disability pension bludger with 10 ice addict kids who all get pregnant in their teens and go on welfare for life.

They could have done the entire doco without even mentioning where these people lived.

[dungoofed]

Mentioned this show to an American friend today. He took a look, then was like "Oh I see, it's like 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo' or 'the Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. Yeah, we've got trailer park reality TV. Let me know when you get something like Bum Fights, then we can talk."

[Rob_S]

I managed to sit through 30 seconds of Bum Fights. It was the most distressing and disturbing 30 sec of 'entertainment' I have ever seen. Avoid!

I plan on watching struggle street soon on the SBS website. I heard good things about it from co-workers. It sounds like it isn't all that exploitative. Fingers crossed.

[Nickyd£g]

There is a similar poverty porn show in the UK - Benefits Street.  In my opinion it's part of the propaganda campaign of the conservative government to demonise the poor/those on state benefits (often through no fault of their own, and which make up less than 6% of the money we allocate to welfare).

[This_Is_My_Username]

i saw it, and thought it was a very well-made documentary.

even though most would be on centrelink benefits,  it disproves the 'welfare queen' trope.

[StockBeard]

I managed to sit through 30 seconds of Bum Fights.

Wait, that's an actual thing?

[mozar]

I hadn't heard f bum fights either. I was wondering why such a thing didn't exist but apparently it was in 2002.